The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 | Page 9

fail to come out from
this school of supreme dishonesty with its lessons so deeply imprinted
on his mind that not one generation or two would eradicate them, and
that of all others he would be most inclined to practise them upon the
white man, whom, having always known as a plunderer, he was only
too glad to have an opportunity to plunder in return. Had Jamaica been
occupied by a resident proprietary, attached by hereditary affection and
pride to the soil, elevated by family sanctities, connected by something
like kindly ties with their bondmen, and regarded by these in turn with
something of affectionate fealty, in that case, although it is not likely
that the ruin of the plantations could have been averted, it might have
been delayed and mitigated. Mr. Underhill indeed goes further, and
quotes the testimony of an overseer in the west of the island, that he
knew of no estate managed, since emancipation, by a resident owner,
which had not continued profitable. But a class of hirelings, debased in
morals by the cruel selfishness of their employers, tempted almost

irresistibly to unfaithfulness by the five thousand miles of ocean
between them and their principals, and to recklessness and tyranny by
the uncertain tenure of their places, and connected with the slaves by
none but the grossest and most sordid ties--such management, in such a
crisis, when the ties of old subjection were suddenly dissolved, and the
negro stood independent, and knowing his independence, before his
masters, would have ruined any country under the sun.
As to the present condition of the emancipated blacks, it is certain that
the 7,340 freeholds which had been acquired in 1840, two years after
emancipation, have considerably increased in number. I never heard of
a negro freehold being given up,[8] while I did know of continual
purchases of land by the blacks, either to make new holdings or to
extend old ones.
The parish of Hanover is one in which happily the various classes are in
a good degree united in feeling. The Hanover Society of Industry
prepared a report about three years ago, quoted by Mr. Underhill,
which shows that in that parish about seven eighths of the people are on
holdings of their own, of which 891 consist of 1 acre, 431 of 2 acres,
and 802 average 5-1/4 acres each. Each family on an average consists
of 4-1/2 persons, and cultivates something over an acre, securing an
income of about £28. Those who own land are five times as numerous
as those who only hire it. The annual value of produce from the small
holdings, estimated at £28 for each (£2 less than the society's estimate),
is about £60,000. There are, besides, 29 estates having 3,675 acres
under cultivation, and employing 2,760 laborers, of whom two thirds
are females.[9] About one eighth of the population is at work upon
them. These estates average 2,608 hogsheads of sugar, and 1,435
puncheons of rum. Of the whole area of the estates, 3,555 acres are in
pasturage, and 28,552 acres inaccessible or ruinate. There are, besides,
151 small properties of 20 acres and upward. In six districts,
comprising about one fourth of the parish, there were found 143 small
cane mills, valued at £10 apiece, which turned out, in 1859, 455 barrels
of sugar, worth about £900, to say nothing of the pork fattened on the
refuse molasses. One district of the six, constituting the quarter of the
parish examined, produced, in 1857, 146 barrels; in 1858, 227 barrels;

in 1859, 261 barrels.
This is a pretty fair picture of what may be expected in parishes where
the whites show some regard for the blacks; not very magnificent
results, it is true, but showing the disposition of the people to procure
land of their own, and their increasing disposition to add to the raising
of provisions the cultivation of the great staple of the soil. The report of
the Society of Industry bears the following testimony to their character:
'The peasantry are, generally speaking, industrious and well behaved,
and are gradually becoming more comfortable in their worldly
circumstances. In the town of Lucea there has been a decided increase
in the amount of business within the last three years as compared with a
number of years previously.' In Hanover, in 1845, there were 70 estates
in operation. In 1860 there were only 29. The planters of this parish,
however, do not lay the blame on the negroes, but attribute the decline
to the mountainous character of the parish, which made it unprofitable
to continue the estates after the great fall in the price of sugar.
Now the blacks of Hanover are just the same race as the rest of the
negro population of the island. The only difference is that the whites